Unfortunately I've experienced the same thing. Its not like some of my experiences in there weren't meaningful, and as a raid officer I can maybe even claim to have developed leadership skills, but I have to ask what kind of person I'd be nowadays without that game.

Using TinEye, the largest version of the pic (i.e. most likely to be the original, though not necessarily) was posted back in May 2009. Using Google I found a bunch of references to the pic in Nov 2009, so my guess is mid to late 2009 is when you first saw it.

A year ago, I sent him an e-mail asking him about the display. Here's his response:

I suffer from a congenital degenerative condition of the cornea called Fuch’s Dystrophy (yeah, it’s a stupid name). Other people in my family also have it. It eventually leads to blindness as your corneas fail (the endothelial tissue on the back of your cornea fails to transport water properly). While I was waiting on a transplant (the only current treatment), I was using the 42” monitor you see me sitting in front of.

Even though I’ve had corneal transplants for both my eyes, I had gotten used to the monitor. While 1080P is a bit low res for a desktop display of that size, the color gamut is vastly better than just about any monitor I’ve seen. It’s great for games and video, and mediocre for dense text.

He is the God-Emperor of the PC master race. He will lead us to the promised land of daily deals and Half-Life 3.His countenance is a blessing to look upon. And his steamguard shields us from the tyranny of evil men. And though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We shall not fear the rEAper.

No that's John Carmack. The guy that built the first-person shooter genre. The guy who first used fast inverse square root in any industry. The guy behind some of the best engines of gaming history. The guy who's been at the forefront of various tech for over 20 years. The guy who fixed VR in his spare time over a couple months. The guy who is the best speaker and interviewee in the business. John Carmack is the king of PC gaming.

Minimalistic UIs are pretty useful for high end PVE where you need to pay attention to every single detail (Mind I don't play wow now, dont tell me its easy and such) DID I SAY YOU DONT NEED RECOUNT? WHAAAAAAT?!

Anyway as pointed by another comment, dem action bars are almost at character position in screen.

Half-Life is a cool title and all as it refers to the halflife of radioactive materials, but when you put that "online" behind it it suddenly sounds rude. As in Half a Life because you spend too much time Online. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.

This isn't the right thread to say this BUT...I wish people would stop emailing Gabe with stupid shit just to get a response. It's great that he goes out of his way to reply to so many emails, but he's a busy guy and so many people on reddit email him stupid shit purely to get a response. Like "Gabe, what is your favourite game of all time", you don't give a shit what his favourite game of all time is, you just want a response to post on reddit and get some Karma. Leave the guy alone, please.

there he is.
the ceo of valve. one of the last big game studios more dedicated to make great games than to make great money.
a billionaire. an idol of a whole generation of pc gamers.
there he is. sitting with closed blinds, enjoying a video game.
we love you gabe.